26 May
2004
26 May
'04
10:54 a.m.
['hacker']
It means both! Two separate concepts covered by one
word. I personally
The problem is that one of the meanings has criminal, or at least very
undesirable, overtones. If I say 'Oh, I was hacking last night' then
people probably assume I was doing something illegal, rather than (say)
figuring out how to read HP calculator disks on a PC, or writing a device
driver for some homebrew hardware, or something else (a) legal and (b)
interesting.
use the term to refer to both. I don't understand
why people get so
bent out of shape over this, it's not like it's the only English word
that has multiple definitions depending on context.
YEs, but here it causes confusion, of a very undesirable sort!
Sorry for those of you annoyed by this kind of banter,
it just annoys the
hell out of me when people get into/start this flamewar.
And I get _very_ annoyed by people who insist on misusing a term that I
would feel honoured to be called (in the original sense).
Perhaps you'd like to come up with some alternative term for 'hacker' in
the original sense (a single, easy-to-remmeber word) and get it accepted
everywhere. Then I _might_ be prepared to give up the original meaning of
'hacker'. Alternatively, just call criminals what they are!
-tony